One of my dad's patients suffered from pseudocyesis. I never understood it then but I remember the whispers at the clinic. A lady who exhibited all signs of pregnancy yet she was not pregnant. Pseudocyesis is the appearance of clinical or subclinical signs and symptoms associated with pregnancy when the organism is not actually pregnant.
Yediji really wanted to bear children that her body responded to this desire. At twelve months her tummy was still extended and her menses had long stopped. Society expected Yediji to procreate and not having children was a failure on her part. Something that made her half woman and drove her mother in law crazy. No one bothered to ask if perchance the failure was her husband's.
It was this desire not to fail in the duty for which she was married that led her to the mountain of jaw dropping miracles with a white goat in search of a miracle. Now this I can relate to. The unreasonable things we do at the behest of advice from well meaning and not so well meaning people. It is this desire and desperation that leads us to Bishop Kanyari, Bishop Deya and other new age 'bishops' It is this mocking by others that led Hannah to the temple to seek respite from God who had "blocked her womb".
In most marriages impotence is blamed on women although it equally applies to women and men. Gynaecology abounds to help women overcome barriers to conception. My dad's clinic was filled to the brim with women seeking fertility help. Now I am not sure what 'logy’ is available to men but that is a story of another day. I remember the many women who came to dad's clinic early in the morning after having intercourse with their husbands. The extraction of the sperm, the trips to the laboratory and the reports. I will never forget the couple who came and had to go during lunch break to undertake sexual intercourse in a lodging just so my dad could extract the sperm. At the time, I always assumed sex was a night time activity. Surely knowing the reason for the intercourse may simply not allow the pregnancy to take place. Surely there had to be a better way. . That said, why should blame be apportioned? Should there be condemnation when it is God in his wisdom who decides to give children or not.
I learnt a new word - Abiku - children. When Yediji falls pregnant her fate is that her children would be Abiku. Although she has demonstrated that she is able to fall pregnant afterall, what is the point of bearing children only to lose them. As I recall, the Igbo call these children Ogbanje. Children whose main job is to terrorize their long suffering mothers. The child who comes and goes from whenst they came, causing their parents so much grief & heartache. Olamide brings much happiness and then goes, only to come back as Sesan who also goes. Then returns as Rotimi. Rotimi (Stay with me) taunts her mother with crisis after crisis, until Yediji is unable to cope. She has no energy for another loss. I know about sickle cell and the devastation thereof because it abounds in our bloodline.
This ultimately is a story about love brewed in the African pot! That Akin loved his wife unconditionally is in no doubt. It was this love that led him to request his brother Dotun to impregnate her - not once but three times - so as to spare her from the ridicule of barrenness. To allow Yediji to experience the joys of motherhood. It was this love that led him to love the children borne to Yediji as though they were his own. For fatherhood is not about sperm donation...Yet this love was not near enough to share his condition with her or inform his mother - as he had with his brother - that it was he and not Yediji who had a problem with conception. It was this love - even after Yediji left - that led him to love Rotimi unconditionally and bring her up through the different sickle cell crises. When his father dies, he looks up Yediji to come and sit by his side. She was afterall the wife of his youth. His best friend.
This is a story of broken dreams, unreasonable expectations & secrets that break up families. About the crossroads between the traditional Yoruba culture and western civilization and the women caught in between.
This is an unputdownable book in the genre of Achebe & Chimamanda. A story that leaves you seeking for more. A story in many ways of triumph & resilience. The story of Rotimi - who agreed to remain. Who answered to her name "Stay with me". Who understood that she could not continue to go away. Who realized that her mother unable to pick the pieces of her broken heart.
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